Brunei's biggest ever humanitarian tsunami relief contingent has left for Indonesia's Aceh province. A 44-man delegation comprising of 36 officers and personnel of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces, 3 officers from the Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Foundation, 1 officer from the Ministry of Culture Youth and Sports and 3 medical officers from the Ministry of Health boarded two Blackhawk helicopters Wednesday morning.

Accompanying the two Blackhawk helicopters was the CN-235 aircraft, which carried aid materials, support equipment for the contingent and technical spare parts for the aircraft and helicopters. Prior to take-off, the Acting Minister of Defence, Pengiran Sanggamara Diraja Retired Major General Pengiran Haji Ibnu Basith handed over the Brunei flag to the head of the contingent, Major Shahril Anwar bin Haji Ma'awiah.

Bidding farewell to the contingent were the Minister of Health in his capacity as the Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Foundation Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors; Pehin Dato Awang Haji Abu Bakar, the Chairman of the Foundation's Board of the Directors; Pehin Dato Ustaz Haji Badaruddin and other members of the board of directors.

The Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Foundation has contributed 100 thousand dollars towards the costs of the relief operation. The BAKTI Association also handed over donations Wednesday morning. The Blackhawk helicopters will transport and distribute medical supplies and food and clothes donations to areas that are difficult to reach by land or river. They will stay in the operation zone for as long as needed, and will fly back to Brunei Darussalam every two weeks for technical inspections.

The CN-235 aircraft will be performing return flights from Brunei Darussalam to Aceh, transporting aid and donations every 4 days. Two Blackhawk helicopters will fly to Pontianak to refuel and proceed to Batam for an overnight stay, before proceeding to Medan. From there, the Blackhawks will then fly to Aceh. The CN-235 aircraft will be flying first to Batam before proceeding to Medan and finally to Aceh province.

Indonesia expresses its sincere gratitude to the government of His Majesty for showing full support for the relief efforts in the wake of the tsunami disaster. This was conveyed by the Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia, His Excellency, Yusbar Djamil in an exclusive interview with Radio Television Brunei.

His Excellency Yusbar Djamil said on behalf of his government he thanked Brunei Darussalam for the immediate response in helping and providing aid to the victims of Aceh. The Ambassador of Indonesia also spoke on the urgent needs of assistance in helping the reconstruction of the affected areas.

Donations for the Tsunami Relief Fund continue to pour in. The Brunei Shell Petroleum, the Brunei LNG, Brunei Shell Tankers and the Brunei Shell Marketing and their employees have collectively donated 725 thousand dollars to relief efforts to assist tsunami victims. Of the donations, close to 95 thousand dollars was raised through voluntary contributions from employees, which was matched by an equal amount by BSP to make up a total of 190 thousand.

Following discussions with the relief fund committee, the contributions of 190 thousand dollars would be donated to the United Nations Children's Fund or UNICEF to assist the agency in its efforts to provide urgently needed humanitarian aid and long term development support for the thousands of children affected by the disaster.

In addition, BSP, BLNG, BSM and BST will donate a further 500 thousand dollars to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees or UNHCR to support relief efforts aimed at resettling the displaced people following the disaster.

The amount collected so far is 1,545,198 dollars and 58 cents. The amount of donations pledged is more than 62,500 dollars.

Meanwhile the SMS Brunei Prihatin has collected more than 108,000 dollars. The figure was quoted until 7.45 pm last night.

A three-day Business Incubator programme, with the theme 'Nurturing Small and Medium Entreprenuers in the Asean Region Through Business Incubator' entered the second day Wednesday. It is organized jointly by the Resource and Standard Centre of Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources and the Association for Overseas Technical Scholarship, AOTS in Japan.

The training programme hopes to contribute in promoting the economic and industrial development among developing countries. The Business Incubator Programme is one of the conducive training sessions by the Government of His Majesty to the SME's in Brunei who are still struggling with their business.

The Jefri Bolkiah College of Engineering took full benefit of home court advantage by walking away with the title of the first inter-school General Science Quiz for vocational and technical educational institutions. The Jefri Bolkiah College of Engineering trounced over teams from the Sultan Saiful Rijal Technical College, Nakhoda Ragam and the Sultan Bolkiah Vocational School.

The competition was segmented into three rounds namely individual, group and speed round. Aside enriching knowledge in the field of science, the subject helps students to apply the skills they acquired in the classrooms into the real world.

The Director of Technical Education, Awang Haji Mohamad Daud in the competition speech stressed on the importance of students to understand the principles of science to be able to perform their tasks in the engineering field. He reiterated that the Ministry of Education looks forward to meet the needs of skilled manpower requirement of the country.

Prizes were presented by the guest of honour. The integrated education system will produce students who possess not only knowledge and skill but also Islamic values.